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Open Books: Event Archive
November 17, 2005 07:30 PM
DOBBY GIBSON & STEVE HEALEY
Mr. Gibson's book, Polar ($13.95 Alice James), is where the elegiac is
seen coming through the wry. The passage of time is often his focus: "If you
have seen the snow / somewhere slowly fall / on a bicycle, / then you
understand / all beauty will be lost, / and even that loss / can be
beautiful." He is rarely that somber, though. Usually his wit rules: "We
take the avenue, / leaving our umbrellas behind, / thinking our heads will
do." Earthling ($14 Coffee House) is Mr. Healey's collection of poems
often concerned with seeking and/or discovering the self: "I do not know the
small person / wearing my quilted other person," and, in another poem: "I
see me afraid // to sweat, made of tiny bricks / wrapped in skin-colored
petals / with mustard for mortar." The poems are located in a world of
daring juxtapositions, presented with a dry, comic delivery: "I invited all
the worms to my place, / then I wasn't there. // This way I often avoided
death."
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